Information shock: how AI demands an evolution of information science

Purpose This paper argues that AI authoring is prompting an Information Shock and a new information science. The shock is not a matter of increased volume and variable quality of AI-produced information. It comes as generative AI creates a new kind of author that dissolves the document, the field’s organizing unit. This forces a reconstitution of tools, literacies and identity. Design/methodology/approach The paper applies a conceptual framework drawn from the history of Information Shocks, tracing how disruptions from cuneiform to post-World War II research data forced the field to rebuild around new objects and practices. AI is analyzed against that pattern. Findings AI produces two modes of authorship: document-like objects that enter existing infrastructures, and transactional, co-authored exchanges with no stable unit to catalog, retrieve, cite or verify. The second mode renders AI literacy inadequate, even in its current forms, because they presuppose an identifiable object and human interlocutors. Anticipated changes reach professional identity, tools, intellectual property and education. Research limitations/implications The argument is theoretical and prospective, and some anticipated changes remain speculative. The Information Shock outlined is anticipated to have major impacts for librarians and information professionals moving forward. Originality/value The paper offers a historically grounded distinction between document-producing and transactional AI authorship, arguing that AI is pushing the exchange to take the mediating position that the field has long held.